


Song

by queuingtrilobite (orphan_account)



Category: 6th Century BCE Poet RPF, Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-01-24 08:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21335074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/queuingtrilobite
Summary: Three ages of life and the things that bind them.
Relationships: Sappho (fl. 600 BC)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SapphoIsBurning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/gifts).

There is a cove, a little way from the port of Eresus; a secret place. Sappho discovers it by happy chance, following the gurgling laughter of a silver stream down the slope, pushing through myrtle and oleander, stepping over the tiny, bright heads of wild orchids.

Away from her grandfather’s lands she travels, as bold as Odysseus, drawn on by the music of the water as it runs hither and yon. It alternates its rhythm as it rolls over pebbles, as it skirts larger rocks; then its note changes as it drops from a height and freefalls, splashing deep into a pool at the foot of the hillside.

The air changes, too. No longer warm with the smell of the earth and the sweetness of apple blossom, but the cooler, sharper scent of the sea.

Sappho climbs down into the cove, glad of her kilted skirts. Nurse will scold her later; she has twigs and leaves in her hair, and a scratch on her shoulder that stings, but not unpleasantly. She gazes at the rocks, some wicked with barnacles, others slick with seaweed, and takes off her kidskin boots to dig her toes into the wet sand.

When she reaches the pool, she dips in her fingers and tastes them. The water is pure, but with an aftertaste of brine. She studies the distance from the shore to the pool, and realises that twice a day, the pool must fill with the tide’s leavings, to be slowly emptied by the water running from the land.

The roar of the ocean is loud here. It must be, for she doesn’t hear the woman’s tread, or the rustle of her garments. She doesn’t notice the woman at all, too absorbed in the duet between the waves and the waterfall, until she hears a voice.

“Greetings, little girl.”

Sappho turns, surprised and offended. She is not little. She is eight years old. Her brother Larichus is the little one of the family. The retort wavers on her tongue, but dies unuttered.

A woman is sitting on one of the barnacled rocks. She is prettier than Mama, her hair a long coil of red-gold bound with a rich purple band. She wears a soft linen robe and Lydian shoes, the workmanship so very fine and elegant that Sappho longs to stroke the leather and discover if it’s as soft and supple as it appears. Gold bracelets chime subtle music from the woman’s arms, and her skin is as pale as moonlight.

“Greetings, lady. I am Sappho of Eresus.” She makes a curtsey. She is of good family, and knows how to behave prettily when required. Some atavistic sense nudges her, prompts her to ask, “Have I trespassed, lady? Is this your cove?”

The woman laughs. The sound is like the gentle susurrus of waves on a beach. Her eyes sparkle, a limpid grey-green. “The pool is mine, and the waterfall, and of the ocean I have a small share.” She tips her head, assessing Sappho with a smiling gaze. “What brings you here, child?”

“The stream.” Sappho points. “It sang to me, and I followed it. I climbed down the hill,” she indicates her route, “and the song changed. I wanted to know how it ended.”

“How did it end?” The woman looks interested.

Sappho goes closer, her feet sinking a little into the damp sand. The sensation is both liquid and solid, a contradiction. She stands in front of the woman and closes her eyes, listens to the ocean and the waterfall. It is one song, with two voices, yet the two sometimes meld to make one harmonious whole.

“I don’t know how it ends.”

It pains her to make the admission. Her brothers Erigyius and Charaxus tease her, call her Miss Know-It-All. Certainly she is the most advanced of them in their daily lessons. Their tutor labours over instructing Erigyius, who at thirteen is burdened with the knowledge that he must take over their late father’s mercantile business. Grandfather holds the reins for now, but trade is a wild horse, unpredictable in its moods, and their grandfather is getting old.

As for Charaxus, he relies on his looks and charm to ease his way. Twelve years old and already as pretty as Ganymede, with eyes as blue as the summer sky and dark lashes that curl around a finger. Their tutor is in love with him, of course. Charaxus plays on the man’s infatuation, but his gaze turns to the lively maidservants bustling about the house.

Sappho is a model student, outstripping her siblings in talent and understanding. But she is a girl, destined for marriage and motherhood. The only travel she will undertake will be on the journey to her future husband’s house. This is the way of things, and she is content, for Lesbos is the most beautiful of all islands—she remembers Father declaring this—and so she will make it her whole world.

She will make it her world, and she will sing its praises, and in her music she will put every tree and bird and creeping thing, every flower and rock and scent, every emotion stirred, both good and bad. For music is a totality, the sum of all things, and mastery over song means mastery over her fate.

But… Her brow furrows, her shoulders droop. Tears threaten. She admits her ignorance again: “I don’t know how the song ends.”

The woman is not like Nurse, not like Mama, not like her tutor. She has no ready answer, no handy proverb, no exhortation to study more. Instead, the lady with the grey-green eyes gets to her feet and places a delicate hand on Sappho’s shoulder.

“My name is Glauce,” she says in her sea-borne voice. “You will be welcome here again.”

*

Sappho returns to the cove many times as she grows from a child into a maiden, but she rarely sees Glauce. She feels her presence, though, and is careful to show her respect. Sometimes she searches out a wave-smoothed pebble that sits warmly in her palm, or a lustrous sea-shell, and leaves them on the barnacled rock. As she gets older, she brings other gifts: a purple ribbon, bought in Mytilene’s market; a pinch of incense smoked in a simple terracotta lamp.

Most often, though, she brings her songs. She dances on the firm sand, drawing complex notations with the rhythm of her feet. She brings her lyre and sits on a rock garlanded at the base with seaweed, and she half closes her eyes, to be part of the world and yet outside it, and she lets sensation take her, dictate to her.

She listens to the music of the waves and the cadence of the waterfall; she catches songs that flow on the breeze from far distant shores. She observes the birds, sparrows and nightingales, warblers and finches; those whose songs are liquid melodies and those who sing in monotone. She moves amongst the flowers and trees, learning the metre of their seasons: cyclamen, rose, chestnut, olive, black pine.

Her fingers trace on the strings an echo of what she hears in nature.

One day she comes to the cove, not with a light step and joyful heart but in a passion of agony. She is fifteen, and Erigyius has decreed that she is to be married. A husband has been found for her in Mytilene; a merchant, like her father, like her elder brothers. He is from the Cyclades and has made his home on Lesbos to take advantage of the trade route through the Euxine. He is a good man, Mama says, a wealthy man, who will keep her in comfort and style.

But she does not want a fashionable household, a pet monkey on a golden chain, a litter with purple curtains to carry her everywhere. She wants—she wants…

“Come, Sappho, why these tears?”

She lifts her head from her hands and sees Glauce standing in front of her, stately and beautiful though the hem of her gown is wet with sand and her delicate feet bare. Her hair is worn loose, a pouring flame of red-gold. Blue gems in golden settings clasp the shoulders of her dress. 

“I am to be wed soon.” Sappho dries her eyes and lifts her chin. “The apple is sweet and ripe for the plucking, and now I am to be tossed from the bough.”

Glauce sits beside her, cool skin and warm understanding. “Virtuous maidens should have no fear of the marriage bed.”

“I am not afraid.” Sappho lowers her gaze, twining her fingers. In truth she is a little nervous. In different ways, Mama and Nurse have told her what to expect and how to go about it. Charaxus has been teasing her, telling her of men’s lusts, laughing about the supposed prowess of her bridegroom. He has a penis the size of a hammer, her brother claims, and Sappho has taken to calling her betrothed Prick, for to name something is to have power over it. 

“What is it you fear?” Glauce asks, her voice soft and hushing.

“Change. Loss.” They are small words, but like a pebble tossed into a pool, their consequences ripple outwards.

Sappho laces her fingers together so tight her knuckles show white as summer grass. “I lost a—a very dear friend to marriage,” she says, ordering her tumultuous thoughts into order. “Atthis was her name. We swore binding vows to one another, but marriage cut her from me, and now she is gone forever. She has become distant to me in all ways—her husband took her to Sardis, and in her final letter to me, she writes that she has a new friend, a woman in whom she delights, called Andromeda. How I hate her for abandoning me!” 

“Jealousy is a fine emotion for song.” Glauce leans against her, red-gold hair sweeping over Sappho’s shoulder, brushing her cheek.

Sappho breathes in, smells violets and rose and musk. “But how does the song end?”

“Shall we find out?”

She looks up. Glauce is smiling at her, grey-green eyes alight with the promise of spring. Sappho draws in a breath of wonder.

Glauce’s skin is soft as sea-foam. She tastes of brine.

Above them, a flock of sparrows takes flight.

*

She does not know if she will come here again, if she will be allowed to return, and her worry makes Sappho stumble. Her body has changed since the first time she came upon this place, and though the tamarisk and oleander bend their branches for her, though the smell of apple blossom still hangs in the air at the top of the hill and the waves hiss and suck their endless dance in the cove, she feels clumsy as she makes her descent.

When last she came here, she was a maid. Now she is a widow.

Mama was right: Her husband had been a good man, if lacking in sophistication. He’d boasted of her accomplishments, even though he lacked the wit to appreciate them in anything more than a superficial way. Sappho had not minded; some enjoyed music for the pleasure of its melody rather than the intricacy of its composition.

They had rubbed along together well enough until the day when Larichus, now a cup-bearer to the ruler of Mytilene, had brought word of disaster. Her husband’s ship had foundered in a storm, and all aboard had perished.

She mourned him as was proper, and now she has returned to the care of her older brother.

Erigyius trusts her, asks for her advice and listens to her judgement, though his decisions are his own. They have become close, especially after Charaxus spent most of his wealth on ransoming that Naucratian courtesan. She had rebuked Charaxus for his folly, of course, but in the end, blood is blood. Sappho would do anything to protect her family, and these are dark and dangerous days. 

At the bottom of the hill, she kicks off her shoes. The sand is cool and damp beneath her toes. Down here, the song is unchanged, the waterfall splashing into the pool, the muted roar of the waves, an endless duet.

Sappho has not come alone. With her is her most precious gift: her daughter, Cleis.

They reach the sanctuary of the pool. She shows Cleis how to taste the water, to learn for herself the exquisite mingling of purity and salt. Her daughter is younger than she was when she discovered the cove, and Cleis turns her sea-green gaze up in delight and says, “Mama, it’s magic!”

“Not magic, little one, but nature.” Glauce comes towards them from the waves, her flesh shimmering like moonlight, her dress forming about her body, her parti-coloured cloak gathered from seaweed. Her teeth gleam like pearls, and her red-gold hair swirls about her like the currents around the reef in the Lagoon of Pyrrha.

Sappho lays a hand on Cleis’s shoulder. Her daughter’s hair is the same rich shade, and her eyes hold the ocean. She wonders if Glauce blessed her, that day when they lay together. If in addition to drawing out the spine of jealousy and giving voice to a new song, Glauce had somehow created this perfect child, her beloved daughter.

“It has been a long time.” Glauce’s tone holds no reproach; she is smiling.

“It has.” Sappho’s fingers tingle with memory. A delicate flame burns beneath her skin. Her heart beats a familiar rhythm. “But I never forgot.”

Glauce nods. “I heard your songs.”

Relief floods her. All those times in Mytilene, when she had walked with her lyre along the shore to the temple of Aphrodite with its rose-smothered altars… She had performed her music for the Cyprian and for Glauce, trusting that the greater deity would not begrudge the lesser goddess a portion of her offering.

“I give thanks to Aphrodite,” Sappho says, “and promise her a pair of white doves before I leave the island.”

Dismay flickers over Glauce’s lovely face, then she smiles again. “You are going on a journey?”

“Not from choice.” Sappho catches Cleis as her daughter lifts a hand to play with the fronds of seaweed that make up Glauce’s cloak. She holds her child close, as protective as a mother bear. “My family must go into exile. A storm is brewing in Mytilene as violent as anything Boreas could bring down upon us in the winter. Mistakes have been made and friendships broken. The common people prefer a tyrant to an elected leader. We backed the wrong horse in this race, and now we must pay for the decision.”

Glauce nods, her features calming. “You came to say goodbye.”

Tears sting Sappho’s eyes. “Only the gods know if this parting is forever. Know, Lady, that I will carry you with me. And,” she adds, her courage not failing, “I would ask a boon. Not for myself, but for Cleis. My daughter.”

“A pretty child.” Glauce lays a hand on Cleis’s head, smoothing the fine red-gold curls. “She is fortunate not to have her father’s looks, I think.”

Sappho bites back a smile. “Yet he worshipped her, and when she is of age, Cleis will inherit all he had—if ever we return to Lesbos.”

“Oh, you will.” Glauce’s voice is distant, her gaze faraway. She strokes Cleis’s hair again then meets Sappho’s gaze. “Both of you will come home. The song has not ended yet.”

Gratitude fills Sappho’s soul. She bows her head. “That was not the boon I came for, but I thank you for the reassurance.” She looks up again, searching Glauce’s face. “Lady, I ask for safe passage across the sea. We go to Sicily, and the sailing season grows short. If you have influence… if you could smooth the waves…”

Glauce steps forward, taking Sappho’s hands. Cleis stands within the circle they have made, her green gaze flitting between her mother and the Nereid.

“I can do that.” A smile blossoms over Glauce’s mouth; a wicked look sparks in her eyes. “It is the least I can do, after robbing you of a husband.”

**Author's Note:**

> Translations referenced/quoted in passim: Bing & Cohen, Freeman, Burnett.


End file.
